By Scott Gilfoid: Since Joe Calzaghe (46-0, 32 KOs) chose to quit rather than fight the talented unbeaten light heavyweight Chad Dawson (27-0, 17 KOs), I felt it was up to me to use my in depth knowledge of both fighters to give a breakdown of what would likely have happened if the two had met in the ring. Dawson, 26, had been counting on Calzaghe to fight him before retiring from boxing, but instead Calzaghe chose to retire with a big money fight over the badly washed up Roy Jones Jr. on November 8th, 2008, and not surprisingly, Joe defeated the faded Roy by a 12-round decision.
Now Calzaghe was a quite capable fighter during his long 16-year career, but he faced few real tests aside from a number of older, past their prime former champions like Jones, Bernard Hopkins, Richie Woodhall, Chris Eubank, and Charles Brewer. Calzaghe’s other good wins of his career were over Jeff Lacy, Mikkel Kessler, Omar Sheika, Sakio Bika, Byron Mitchell, Peter Manfredo Jr. and Robin Reid.
Those wins essentially round out Calzaghe’s career. All the rest of his opponents weren’t what I consider quality fighters, and I discount most of Calzaghe’s wins in his career with the exception of his victories over Kessler and Bika. Calzaghe’s 12-round split decision win over Hopkins in April 2008 appeared to be a loss for Joe, but he was given a very favorable decision by two of the judges at ringside.
Dawson, a former 2000 United States National Under-19 Amateur Champion, has sailed through his first 26 fights, beating Tomasz Adamek, Eric Harding, Glen Johnson, Epifanio Mendozan and Antonio Tarver. Like Calzaghe, Dawson has a high number of fights against C and D class fighters, though not nearly as many as Calzaghe does on his inflated record.
At 6’3”, strong and arguably a couple of degrees faster than Calzaghe, Dawson would be big headache for the Welsh fighter. Dawson’s superior power would also be a huge problem for Calzaghe, giving him fits in exchanges. Calzaghe is used to slapping away at his opponents at close range and getting the better of the with volume punching. This wouldn’t work against Dawson, who would beat Calzaghe to the punch and knock him down.
It would be made easier in that Calzaghe often squared up to his opponents when throwing his slapping shots, making him an easy target for the fast power shots from Dawson. One of Calzaghe’s advantages was that he fought from a southpaw stance. This wouldn’t help him against Dawson, who also is a southpaw and quite skilled at fighting other southpaws judging from Dawson’s easy victory over the southpaw Tarver.
I think Calzaghe would be over-matched from the start of the fight with Dawson, getting beaten back by quick power shots from Dawson early on in the first round and probably knocked down in the first round. The beating would continue in rounds two and three, with Dawson savagely pounding the face and midsection of Calzaghe, and causing Joe’s face to bleed. In between rounds, a confused and frightened Calzaghe would plead for advice from his father, asking him to give him a strategy to try and make Dawson stop punching so often.
Calzaghe’s father would advise him to throw more shots, visually showing him how to throw slapping punches by pawing at the air. Calzaghe would then nod, agreeing to follow the advice. In the 4th round, Calzaghe would come out and try to put in practice what he was told by standing square in front of Dawson and flailing with both hands as if he were a school boy fighting on the playground.
Dawson would merely smile with amusement, and start landing speedy combinations, knocking Calzaghe off balance each time Chad would land. Finally, Dawson would catch Calzaghe with a straight left hand and send him to the canvas. Calzaghe, always one that recovers quickly, would stagger to his feet and try to fight on.
Dawson, though, would prove to be an excellent finisher, burying Calzaghe with a 20 punch combination thrown within seconds and ending with Calzaghe falling face first on the canvas, totally knocked out. The referee would take one look at Joe and not even bother counting.
There you have it, Dawson would most probably have knocked Calzaghe out in the 4th round if the two had met. Calzaghe’s unbeaten legacy would have then had its first blemish, thus ruining his dream of retiring undefeated. As you can see, it’s a good thing that Calzaghe did choose to retire rather than facing Dawson, because Joe would have been in serious trouble if he had faced the young, talented Dawson, and would have lived to regret it.
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